Active Lighting And Its Application For Computer Vision

This book describes active illumination techniques in computer vision. We can classify computer vision techniques into two classes: passive and active techniques. Passive techniques observe the scene statically and analyse it as is. Active techniques give the scene some actions and try to facilitate the analysis. In particular, active illumination techniques project specific light, for which the characteristics are known beforehand, to a target scene to enable stable and accurate analysis of the scene. Traditional passive techniques have a fundamental limitation. The external world surrounding us is three-dimensional; the image projected on a retina or an imaging device is two-dimensional. That is, reduction of one dimension has occurred. Active illumination techniques compensate for the dimensional reduction by actively controlling the illumination. The demand for reliable vision sensors is rapidly increasing in many application areas, such as robotics and medical image analysis. This book explains this new endeavour to explore the augmentation of reduced dimensions in computer vision. This book consists of three parts: basic concepts, techniques, and applications. The first part explains the basic concepts for understanding active illumination techniques. In particular, the basic concepts of optics are explained so that researchers and engineers outside the field can understand the later chapters. The second part explains currently available active illumination techniques, covering many techniques developed by the authors. The final part shows how such active illumination techniques can be applied to various domains, describing the issue to be overcome by active illumination techniques and the advantages of using these techniques. This book is primarily aimed at 4th year undergraduate and 1st year graduate students, and will also help engineers from fields beyond computer vision to use active illumination techniques. Additionally, the book is suitable as course material for technical seminars.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of the most advanced theories, methodologies and applications in computer vision. Particularly, it gives an extensive coverage of 3D and robotic vision problems. Example chapters featured are Fourier methods for 3D surface modeling and analysis, use of constraints for calibration-free 3D Euclidean reconstruction, novel photogeometric methods for capturing static and dynamic objects, performance evaluation of robot localization methods in outdoor terrains, integrating 3D vision with force/tactile sensors, tracking via in-floor sensing, self-calibration of camera networks, etc. Some unique applications of computer vision in marine fishery, biomedical issues, driver assistance, are also highlighted.

This book addresses an area of perception engineering which deals with constructive processes. A model of the environment is analyzed using the information acquired from mUltiple viewpoints of multiple disparate sensors at multiple time instants. Although the role of successive model building and active exploration of the environment, as is discussed in this book, is of great importance, only a few researchers of machine perception have thus far addressed the problem in these directions. Krotkov's book, which is a modification and continuation of his highly successful dissertation, focuses on active exploratory sensing in the context of spatial layout perception. He uses stereo and focus to obtain distance By information, and to eventually develop cooperative combining techniques. means of a stereo system with verging cameras, it is demonstrated that the distance measurements can be significantly improved by combining two sources. In addition, the problem of merging information from the multiple views is discussed in detail. As the field of perception engineering seems to be of growing scientific and applied importance, both practitioners and researchers in machine perception will find this book a valuable addition to their libraries. RameshJain Series Editor Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Ruzena Bajcsy for her constant encouragement and guidance during the five years of research leading to the dissertation upon which this book is based. Without her help in all matters, this work would never have been possible.

Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications explores the variety of techniques used to analyze and interpret images. It also describes challenging real-world applications where vision is being successfully used, both in specialized applications such as image search and autonomous navigation, as well as for fun, consumer-level tasks that students can apply to their own personal photos and videos. More than just a source of “recipes,” this exceptionally authoritative and comprehensive textbook/reference takes a scientific approach to the formulation of computer vision problems. These problems are then analyzed using the latest classical and deep learning models and solved using rigorous engineering principles. Topics and features: Structured to support active curricula and project-oriented courses, with tips in the Introduction for using the book in a variety of customized courses Incorporates totally new material on deep learning and applications such as mobile computational photography, autonomous navigation, and augmented reality Presents exercises at the end of each chapter with a heavy emphasis on testing algorithms and containing numerous suggestions for small mid-term projects Includes 1,500 new citations and 200 new figures that cover the tremendous developments from the last decade Provides additional material and more detailed mathematical topics in the Appendices, which cover linear algebra, numerical techniques, estimation theory, datasets, and software Suitable for an upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level course in computer science or engineering, this textbook focuses on basic techniques that work under real-world conditions and encourages students to push their creative boundaries. Its design and exposition also make it eminently suitable as a unique reference to the fundamental techniques and current research literature in computer vision.

The four-volume set comprising LNCS volumes 5302/5303/5304/5305 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2008, held in Marseille, France, in October 2008. The 243 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 871 papers submitted. The four books cover the entire range of current issues in computer vision. The papers are organized in topical sections on recognition, stereo, people and face recognition, object tracking, matching, learning and features, MRFs, segmentation, computational photography and active reconstruction.

Active Vision explores important themes emerging from the active vision paradigm, which has only recently become an established area of machine vision. In four parts the contributions look in turn at tracking, control of vision heads, geometric and task planning, and architectures and applications, presenting research that marks a turning point for both the tasks and the processes of computer vision. The eighteen chapters in Active Vision draw on traditional work in computer vision over the last two decades, particularly in the use of concepts of geometrical modeling and optical flow; however, they also concentrate on relatively new areas such as control theory, recursive statistical filtering, and dynamical modeling. Active Vision documents a change in emphasis, one that is based on the premise that an observer (human or computer) may be able to understand a visual environment more effectively and efficiently if the sensor interacts with that environment, moving through and around it, culling information selectively, and analyzing visual sensory data purposefully in order to answer specific queries posed by the observer. This method is in marked contrast to the more conventional, passive approach to computer vision where the camera is supposed to take in the whole scene, attempting to make sense of all that it sees. Andrew Blake is Lecturer in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford Alan Yuille is Associate Professor in the Division of Applied Sciences at Harvard University.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the key technologies and applications related to new cameras that have brought 3D data acquisition to the mass market. It covers both the theoretical principles behind the acquisition devices and the practical implementation aspects of the computer vision algorithms needed for the various applications. Real data examples are used in order to show the performances of the various algorithms. The performance and limitations of the depth camera technology are explored, along with an extensive review of the most effective methods for addressing challenges in common applications. Applications covered in specific detail include scene segmentation, 3D scene reconstruction, human pose estimation and tracking and gesture recognition. This book offers students, practitioners and researchers the tools necessary to explore the potential uses of depth data in light of the expanding number of devices available for sale. It explores the impact of these devices on the rapidly growing field of depth-based computer vision.

While the field of computer vision drives many of today’s digital technologies and communication networks, the topic of color has emerged only recently in most computer vision applications. One of the most extensive works to date on color in computer vision, this book provides a complete set of tools for working with color in the field of image understanding. Based on the authors’ intense collaboration for more than a decade and drawing on the latest thinking in the field of computer science, the book integrates topics from color science and computer vision, clearly linking theories, techniques, machine learning, and applications. The fundamental basics, sample applications, and downloadable versions of the software and data sets are also included. Clear, thorough, and practical, Color in Computer Vision explains: Computer vision, including color-driven algorithms and quantitative results of various state-of-the-art methods Color science topics such as color systems, color reflection mechanisms, color invariance, and color constancy Digital image processing, including edge detection, feature extraction, image segmentation, and image transformations Signal processing techniques for the development of both image processing and machine learning Robotics and artificial intelligence, including such topics as supervised learning and classifiers for object and scene categorization Researchers and professionals in computer science, computer vision, color science, electrical engineering, and signal processing will learn how to implement color in computer vision applications and gain insight into future developments in this dynamic and expanding field.